12/02/2026
Charles Darwin and the Signature in the Cell
Today is the birthday of Charles Darwin, the father of biology, according to many.
It is called the Darwin Day in scientific circles and is being celebrated all over the world.
Darwin's legacy is recognised by people of all faiths.
Still, Darwin is not popular in religious circles because his theories on evolution appear to be diametrically opposed to the accounts of sacred books (The Torah, The Bible and The Quran) on the origin of man.
These books say that God created man in his image and likeness, from a mud, and then breathed on it to give it life.
The idea that man, made in God's image, could have come from apes is uncomfortable for many religious people.
However, many Bible scholars argue that the stories of creationism in Genesis should not be taken literally as the ways of God are not ours, and that God could have carried out his creative work through natural processes, like evolution.
This has given birth to Theistic Evolution, a concept where Christian scientists believe that some of the theories on natural selection agree with the idea of a creator, who wrote the codes in the DNA (as humans would a computer program), the very letters of life, the alteration of which drives natural selection, which, in turn, drives evolution.
One of such scientists is Cambridge-educated Stephen Meyer, who wrote "Signature in the Cell", a book that argues for the existence of supernatural intelligence which is behind the universe and especially the creative forces of biology.
I bought this book seven years ago and recommend it for curious minds looking for an alternative argument to "The God Delusion" by Richard Dawkins.
The compelling argument for intelligent design - an idea that did not even originate from Meyer, but through the evidence provided by the digital codes of the DNA and the many sophisticated nanotechnologies and molecular machines in the cells - makes the argument for blind evolution old fashioned.
The book does not dispute the unimpeachable concept of evolution as a fine-tuning force put in nature by a 'Superintelligent Creator', nor does it argue against common ancestry, making it a non-religious book.
It rather looks at the science and the philosophies of the 'origins' questions, to provide a disinterested challenge against the non-involvement of intelligence in the 'history' of species.
Darwin's own epistemiological beliefs regarding God was more agnostic than atheistic.
Such agnostic leaning might have been influenced by a conflict in his scientific findings on the processes that could have led to man (which he must have found to be rather more tortuous and untidy) versus the magic or miracle of creationism as religious texts and teachers would have him believe.
It is my belief that if theists and atheists could resolve the dogma in their definition of the nature and expectations of God, perhaps they would have found the absolute utility of Darwin's theories and arguments on the Orgins of Species and the Descent of Man.
Happy posthumous birthday to Charles Darwin, the father of biology.
